The Nortwest Passage sound quality that is apparent from the clips is very good. Hopefully we'll have a boxed set of Korngold's adventure scores in similar sound soon – Anthony Adverse, Captain Blood, Sea Hawk, Prince and Pauper, Elizabeth & Essex, Robin Hood. Are they all from the same Turner source?

Obviously a few here weren't at (or saw the video of) the last FSM gettogether where Lukas's #1 pet peeve on here was outlined. It seems Mr. Kendall would be working on a release, sometimes involving years and countless hours of hard work. Then after releasing it to the world including a number of delays and setbacks he gets someone saying "that's nice now it really would be great if you do ______ and _____ by _____" To paraphrase Lukas "you have no idea how this makes me feel". Luckily THIS is what I am after. Westerns, for me, brings out the best in practically every composer and to have Cyril Mockridge, David Shire, Herbert Stothart and Harry Sukman presented with their best foot forward is a dream. The first two boxes sold out and I anticipate this one will too. Thanks for practically a "western encyclopedia of film music" between these three boxes and your coverage of other composer westerns. And let me add the praise of being the only one who presses healthy amounts of items. I needed an extra week to catch up with BULLITT and got it. I even have a cushion to order this at 2000! But you will have more people on here complain about those who add to the feeding frenzy than to praise you who gives all of us a break to get to these releases in a sane amount of time. So double thanks!

Obviously a few here weren't at (or saw the video of) the last FSM gettogether where Lukas's #1 pet peeve on here was outlined. It seems Mr. Kendall would be working on a release, sometimes involving years and countless hours of hard work. Then after releasing it to the world including a number of delays and setbacks he gets someone saying "that's nice now it really would be great if you do ______ and _____ by _____" To paraphrase Lukas "you have no idea how this makes me feel".

Lukas' notes posted today contain the comment: "The film titles for this album were selected in large part from listener responses to our last westerns collection. So keep listening, and keep suggesting titles!"

[startquote There have been many requests for the Stothart NORTHWEST PASSAGE score. In a short time, PASSAGE will be 70 years old, and though the score certainly reflects the recording systems of the time, the sound clips are surprisingly good and will be a great treat for those of us who appreciate these old scores. What particularly surprises me about the release of this score is that it is virtually complete. That would imply that, as suspected, there might be more scores from this early period in the Warner/Turner/MGM vaults which might be accessed in near complete form. Bring on more Stothart, Waxman, Kaper, Amfitheatrof, Tiomkin, Ward, etc.

I would guess that any film in Technicolor Process Three like NORTHWEST PASSAGE where the original Technicolor separations have been preserved by the studio, should have excellent sound, because Technicolor needed high quality optical sound and music tracks to include in the black (contrast improving dye pass) that also contained the soundtrack.

The only thing that I don't know is, did MGM make the sound mix or did Technicolor?

.....I would guess that any film in Technicolor Process Three like NORTHWEST PASSAGE where the original Technicolor separations have been preserved by the studio, should have excellent sound, because Technicolor needed high quality optical sound and music tracks to include in the black (contrast improving dye pass) that also contained the soundtrack.

The only thing that I don't know is, did MGM make the sound mix or did Technicolor?.....

ALL films of this period, Technicolor or black-and-white had a silver soundtrack laid down onto the nitrate print film stock. Thus, within the parameters of each studio's recording/mixing processes, the soundtracks on all of their films would sound excellent and, within each studio, nearly the same, black-and-white or color.

The original music soundtrack recordings in this period would be laid down (within the studio) on optical soundtrack negative. They would then be mixed down, with the dialog and sound effects tracks onto new optical soundtrack negatives which would then become the "mixed" master. This studio-generated optical master would then be used (in this case) by MGM's laboratory for black-and-white printing or delivered over to Technicolor for printing alongside the Technicolor matrices. In any case, the studio did the mix.

Remember however, that this process which we are hearing on this particular CD, happened 60-80 years ago. For NORTHWEST PASSAGE, Lukas probably got digital masters of the raw material from Turner/Warner. Unless Lukas can tell us, we do not know whether these digital masters were made from the original music session optical track 35mm nitrate masters, from dupe 35mm optical track safety preservation masters, from 1/4 or 1/2 mag reel-to-reel tape dubdowns, from acetates or whatever. (In the case of NW PASSAGE we are now 70 years from the masters, whatever they were or are now.)

I am constantly amazed we have ANYTHING left from these days except the final picture, itself. Both (original) MGM and TCFox are to be commended for saving so much of their early sound heritage. There are no other studios which have been this scrupulous with their production assets.

Sez here FSM intends to bring out more Stothart CD's. Sure hope so! If so -- one of 'em's just got to be PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY! Check out Stothart's score to THE HUMAN COMEDY. It's a favorite of mine.